The growing online presence of premium video is starting to get the attention of the cable operators, who no doubt see the lines converging between cable VOD, IP delivered video, and broadband video.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Comcast and Time Warner are in discussions with the major television networks to make their programming available online, but only to viewers who already have a cable subscription. An interesting model, which would offer a wedge for breaking through the bind the networks find themselves in between the MSOs on the one hand and broadband video aggregation sites on the other. That’s the good news. The bad news is that such a scheme would seemingly prevent broadband video from becoming a cable end-around, which, after all, for many is the greatest appeal to broadband video.